Resolved: WordPress VIP Availability Issues

Update (20:24 UTC): On Thursday, June 3, beginning at 09:55 UTC  (5:55 a.m. ET), the VIP Platform experienced degraded performance that lasted approximately 100 minutes.

We take incidents like this very seriously and would like to outline what happened, as well as the steps we have taken to help prevent future occurrences.

What Happened

The issue affected response times in a single data center on the West Coast of the United States, which affected a subset of sites on the WordPress VIP platform.

This was caused by two memcached hosts having issues when network switches (hardware) they are connected to were upgraded and rebooted during regular maintenance operations.

Impact

Those sites in the West Coast datacenter experienced slower response times and, in some cases, 503 errors. The issue was apparent between 09:55 UTC and 11:35 UTC. Busier sites with more memcached traffic were more adversely impacted.

Not Impacted

Sites hosted in other data centers were not affected.

Timeline

  • At 10:20 UTC, we received the first reports of issues.
  • At 11:20 UTC, we identified that the issue was related to a specific datacenter.
  • At 11:35 UTC, performance was restored.

Future Prevention

We have already implemented, or are currently implementing, additional safeguards and process improvements designed to prevent similar issues from happening again. These include (but are not limited to):

  • Additional architecture changes to prevent memcache oversubscription. 
  • Internal monitoring to more quickly identify and resolve any issues.

Questions?

If you have any questions related to this incident, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Update (12:22 UTC): The issue affecting response times in a single West Coast data center has been resolved. Only some VIP sites were affected. More detailed information will be posted here in the VIP Lobby, after the investigation has been completed.

Update (11:54 UTC): We’re currently seeing improvements and are continuing to monitor the situation.

We are currently troubleshooting issues with the WordPress VIP platform, affecting in a single data center on the West Coast of the United States. A limited number of sites may experience slow load times or errors in the meantime.

Sorry for the trouble! We are working on the issue, and will follow up with another alert once this is resolved

We will continue to update this post and tweet out status updates from @wpvipstatus until the issue is resolved

If you have any questions, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Upcoming Changes: Supported Versions of WordPress, Jetpack, PHP, and Node.js, and Delaying Upgrades

At WordPress VIP we help you focus on being creative and innovative, while maintaining a high level of security and reliability on which to build.

Part of providing the highest level of service is ensuring that your software stack, including WordPress core, Jetpack, and PHP are kept on recent versions. That is why today we are announcing some upcoming changes to our policy on version upgrades for WordPress, Jetpack, and PHP.

Starting on July 20th, 2021, we are taking some steps to ensure all customers are able to take advantage of the latest features and security provided by utilizing the latest software available

WordPress

VIP supports the current version of WordPress, and one major version behind. 

Currently, most sites, regardless of WordPress version, are upgraded to the latest version on release day. This is the strategy we recommend for the highest security and to benefit from any new features.

Occasionally, some of our customers need additional time to test compatibility, and we’ve delayed upgrades for these on request. In order to ensure we can support security updates, we are limiting the length of time for these postponed upgrades.

Delaying Upgrades

Customers will only be permitted to remain on the prior major version of WordPress, and those will be subject to immediate point updates (normally, security related).

For example, at the moment, WordPress v.5.7 is the latest version, so the  WordPress VIP platform would support v.5.7, plus v.5.6.*. Once WordPress v.5.8 is released (expected on July 20, 2021), customers who requested to remain on v.5.6.* will be upgraded to v.5.7 or v.5.8 within 2 weeks; VIP will coordinate this change with customers to minimize any impacts. 

If a minor update is issued, all customers will be updated immediately: 5.8 to 5.8.1, and 5.7.2 to 5.7.3 for example.

This applies to all environment types – both production and non-production.

If you have environments currently running versions older than 5.7.x, and have questions, please contact your account team.

Why one version? Security.

According to the WordPress core team, only the latest active version of WordPress is actively supported. 

The WordPress core team attempts to backport security updates to older versions when possible, but there are no guarantees, and no timeframe for updating older releases. This can mean that sites running older versions cannot benefit from important security measures that may be publicly known. Point (minor) releases, in particular, are often security releases, or contain important security updates and bugfixes. 

In any case, the security of our customers’ sites is our highest priority and we will apply security upgrades immediately and without notice. 

Sites in “branch” or “trunk” 

WordPress VIP offers two options for testing upcoming versions of WordPress on your non-production environments: trunk and branch.

“Trunk” is used for the latest development version of WordPress. It is the newest possible version, but not necessarily a stable version. It includes Alpha and Beta versions and changes often. 

“Branch” is used for Release Candidates, and is upgraded as new release candidates are made available. These two versions are often used for testing in develop or preprod environments.

Going forward, any environments on “branch” sites will be upgraded to the release version on release day; environments running trunk will continue to track trunk until explicitly changed. 

Jetpack

VIP supports the current version of Jetpack, and one major version behind.  

For example, at the moment, Jetpack 9.7 is the latest version, so the  WordPress VIP platform would support v.9.7, plus v.9.6. Once Jetpack v.9.8 is released (expected on June 3, 2021), customers on v.9.6.* will be upgraded to v.9.7 or v.9.8 within 2 weeks. 

Plugins

We recommend that customers use the latest version of any plugin, for enhanced platform compatibility and security.

To learn more about plugin updates, please see our documentation.

PHP

We support a single version of PHP which is defined platform-wide. 

Currently that is v.7.4.18. We remain aligned with the official PHP team and only use versions of PHP which have Active Support.

Node.js

We support all Active LTS or Maintenance LTS releases, and the next Active LTS candidate of Node.js. 

For example, currently, this includes Node.js 12, Node.js 14, and Node.js 16. 

Pinning to non-major versions (e.g. 14.16.1) won’t be supported, and minor upgrades will be applied as soon as they’re made available. 

Platform-Wide Upgrade Schedule

You may be interested in the proposed timeline or roadmap for VIP Go updates.
Our platform-wide upgrade schedule can be found here.

New Release: WordPress 5.7 “Esperanza”

Bringing you fresh colors in the admin, simpler interactions in the editor, and controls right where you need them, WordPress 5.7 lets you focus on the content you create.

WordPress 5.7 has been released to the WordPress VIP platform.

Bringing you fresh colors in the admin, simpler interactions in the editor, and controls right where you need them, WordPress 5.7 lets you focus on the content you create. You’ll see 66 enhancements and feature requests, 127 bug fixes, and more!

“Esperanza” is named in honor of Esperanza Spalding, a modern musical prodigy. Her path as a musician is varied and inspiring—learn more about her and give her music a listen!

What is being added or changed?

General changes

Developer changes

jQuery Changes

In 5.7, jQuery gets more focused and less intrusive, with fewer messages in the console.

Please note that larger planned changes to jQuery in WordPress core have been moved to the WordPress 5.8 release, expected in July, 2021.

For more details about this release (including specific changes), please see the announcement post, the Field Guide, as well as the changelog.

Questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: WordPress 5.7 Release Candidate

WordPress 5.7 is scheduled for public release on Tuesday, March 9, 2021, and the 5.7 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available for testing.

We recommend clients review the changelog and Field Guide as part of their testing. You’ll see 66 enhancements and feature requests, 127 bug fixes, and more!

What is being added or changed?

We outlined some of the upcoming changes when the beta version was released. You may want to review the following changes:

General Changes

Developer Changes

Block Editor Changes

jQuery Changes

Please note that last planned changes to jQuery in WordPress core have been moved to the WordPress 5.8 release, expected in June 2021.

What do I need to do?

We recommend:

  1. Updating your local development environments to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it to track 5.7 (i.e. trunk) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos.
  2. For sites on VIP Go, you can have your non-production sites switched to WordPress 5.7 RC 1 now. If this is something you’re interested in, please open a ticket and we can set it up for you.

When Will WordPress 5.7 Be Deployed?

WordPress 5.7 will be rolled out to all VIP sites on Tuesday, March 9, 2021.

Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.

Questions?

If you have testing feedback or questions, related to this release, please open a support ticket, and we will be happy to assist.

WordPress 5.6.1 Maintenance Release

WordPress 5.6.1, a maintenance release, has been pushed out to all VIP sites running WordPress 5.6 that were not locked to a specific version.

This maintenance release features 20 bug fixes as well as 7 issues in the block editor. To see a full list of changes, you can browse the list on Trac, read the 5.6.1 RC1 post, or visit the 5.6.1 documentation page.

For more details about this release (including specific changes), please see the announcement post and release notes.

Have questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: WordPress 5.7 Beta

The beta for WordPress 5.7 is available now.

What is being added or changed?

WordPress 5.7 includes the following features:

  • Improvements to the block editor, including improvements to inserter drag-and-drop, full height alignment, block variations, reusable blocks, the buttons block, the social icons block, and many bug fixes.
  • The ability to standardize colors used in WP-Admin CSS to a single palette.
  • A new Robots API, which allows the filter directives to be included in the ‘robots’ meta tag.
  • Changes to jQuery.

So far, contributors have fixed 143 tickets in WordPress 5.7, including 68 new features and enhancements, and more bug fixes are on the way.

The core community team is expecting to publish 5.7-related developer notes in the coming weeks, and these will describe the above changes in more detail.

Changes to jQuery

Developers will need to update jQuery dependencies in their themes and plugins in order to co-ordinate with a three-step plan to update the version of jQuery included in WordPress. This plan was announced by the Core WordPress Community team last June. The changes involved have been spread across three major releases and 10 months.

The three steps were as follows:

  1. Remove jQuery Migrate 1.x.
    This was completed in WordPress 5.5 (August, 2020).
  2. Update to the latest version of jQuery (3.5.1) and add the latest version of jQuery Migrate (3.3.2). Update to the latest jQuery UI (1.12.1).
    This was completed in WordPress 5.6 (December, 2020).
  3. Remove jQuery Migrate completely.
    This is included in WordPress 5.7 (March, 2021).

Update: Step 3 in the changes to jQuery in WordPress core has been moved to the WordPress 5.8 release, expected in June, 2021.

Is there a plugin that I can use, instead of upgrading themes and plugins?

The jQuery Migrate Helper plugin may allow users to continue to use an outdated, legacy version of jQuery. However, we recommend using the latest version of jQuery in WordPress core for performance and security reasons, as well as for continued plugin compatibility.

What changes do I make? How do I test?

The core team has provided some jQuery-related testing instructions and an overview of the changes necessary.

Testing with the Test jQuery Updates plugin

You may want to test locally using the Test jQuery Updates plugin. It is also possible to enable the plugin in non-production environment on the VIP Go platform. The plugin is enabled if the VIP_ENABLE_TEST_JQUERY_UPDATES constant is set. You can also use vip_load_test_jquery_updates in a query string.

Will my jQuery-dependent code work?

We’ve created a chart that summarizes which jQuery-dependent code is likely to work in WordPress 5.6, as compared to other versions of WordPress. Please note that this should be used for rough guidance. Testing is strongly recommended.

Will my code work?: jQuery changes in WordPress core versions

What do I need to do?

We recommend:

  1. Updating your local development environments to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it to track 5.7 (i.e. trunk) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos.
  2. You can have your non-production sites switched to WordPress 5.7 now. If this is something you’re interested in, please open a ticket and we can set it up for you.

Testing for bugs is a vital part of polishing the release during the beta stage and a great way to contribute. ✨

WordPress Core Team

When will WordPress 5.7 be deployed?

WordPress 5.7 will be rolled out to all VIP Go sites on March 9, 2021.

Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.

Questions?

If you have testing feedback or questions, related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

New Maintenance Release: WordPress 5.5.1

WordPress 5.5.1, a maintenance release, has been pushed out to all VIP sites which were running WordPress 5.5.

The release contains a number of bug fixes, largely related to new features introduced in WordPress 5.5, and to the use of jQuery.

WordPress 5.0 introduced the wp-i18n JavaScript package that provides the functions needed to add translatable strings as you would in PHP. In order to do this, a number of global JavaScript objects were removed without being deprecated. WordPress 5.5.1 adds a backfill for these globals so they no longer cause JavaScript errors. This backfill is temporary, and will be removed in WordPress 5.7. However, this gives plugin and theme developers additional time to remove conflicting code and switch to using the wp.i18n Javascript object.

This maintenance release features 34 bug fixes, 5 enhancements, and 5 bug fixes for the block editor. WordPress 5.5.1 is a short-cycle maintenance release. The next major release will be version 5.6.

For more details about this release (including specific changes), please see the announcement post and release notes.

Have questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Call for testing: WordPress 5.5.1 maintenance release

WordPress 5.5.1, a maintenance release, is scheduled for release on all VIP sites on Tuesday, September 1, 2020. A Release Candidate will be available for testing on Thursday, August 27, 2020.

What is being added or changed?

The release is expected to contain a number of bug fixes, largely related to new features introduced in WordPress 5.5, or to the use of jQuery.

Shortly after WordPress 5.5 “Eckstine” was released, a small handful of tickets were opened reporting identified bugs. Because a few of them are particularly inconvenient, 5.5.1 will be a short-cycle release so that they can be addressed more quickly.

When Will WordPress 5.5.1 Be Deployed?

VIP Go: WordPress 5.5.1 will be rolled out to all WordPress.com VIP and VIP Go sites on Tuesday, September 1, 2020.

WordPress.com VIP: As with all Core upgrades, we’ll be pushing incremental updates leading up to the public release.

Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.

What Should I Do?

We highly recommend updating your local development environments to the Release Candidate using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it via either the Subversion or GitHub repos.

For sites on VIP Go, you can have your non-production sites switched to WordPress 5.5.1 beginning on Thursday, August 27. If this is something you’re interested in, please open a ticket and we can set it up for you.

For more details about this release (including specific changes), please see the announcement post.

Have questions?

If you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

Call for Testing: WordPress 5.5 (Release Candidate)

WordPress 5.5 is scheduled for public release on Tuesday, August 11, 2020, and the 5.5 Release Candidate 1 (RC1) is now available for testing. We recommend clients review the changelog and the WordPress 5.5 Field Guide as part of their testing.

What Is Being Added or Changed?

We outlined some of the upcoming changes when the beta version was released. We’d also like to point out some of the newer developer notes that have recently been published.

Block editor: features and improvements

The latest block editor improvements have been detailed, including some new block tools. And there are a number of changes to WordPress React Components in WordPress 5.5. The Block API changes have also been outlined.

XML sitemaps

There are more detailed notes on the new sitemap functionality that’s been added to WordPress in version 5.5. In particular, the core development team has provided detailed information on how to customize sitemaps and disable them. There is also a list of new classes, functions, hooks and filters.

Language Changes

WordPress is changing some terminology “aimed at maintaining a welcoming environment for all contributors while improving the clarity and inclusivity of the codebase”.

Notably:

  • blacklist_keys has been renamed to disallowed_keys.
  • comment_whitelist has been renamed to comment_previously_approved.
  • Several related functions have been deprecated.

For a more detailed list of changes, see the RC 1 release announcement.

Developer Notes

A set of developer notes is now available. Here are the highlights.

  • Themes: functions calling locate_template()now have a return value. Starting in 5.5, the following functions now return false if the template file is not found, and void if the template is found and loaded:
    • get_header()
    • get_footer()
    • get_sidebar()
    • get_template_part()
  • Default categories for custom post types
  • A new default_term argument has also been added to register_taxonomy().
  • Comments: default comment_type value now enforced. After upgrading to 5.5, an upgrade routine will be scheduled via cron and run to update all preexisting comments with an empty comment_type to comment. This process will batch comments 100 at a time. The batch size can be adjusted using the wp_update_comment_type_batch_size filter.
  • WordPress 5.5 will bring a few changes to the values wp_update_comment() returns.
  • TinyMCE: TinyMCE has been updated to version 4.9.10

Other Changes

When Will WordPress 5.5 Be Deployed?

VIP Go: WordPress 5.5 will be rolled out to all WordPress.com VIP and VIP Go sites on Tuesday, August 11, 2020.

WordPress.com VIP: As with all Core upgrades, we’ll be pushing incremental updates leading up to the public release.

Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.

What Should I Do?

We highly recommend updating your local development environments to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it to track 5.5 via either the Subversion or GitHub repos.

For sites on VIP Go, you can have your non-production sites switched to WordPress 5.5. If this is something you’re interested in, please open a ticket and we can set it up for you.

And, as always, if you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.

WordPress 5.4 Release Expected Tuesday

WordPress 5.4 is scheduled for release on Tuesday, March 31, 2020.

With the final release candidate behind us, we recommend clients review the changelog and the WordPress 5.4 Field Guide and set aside some time for last-minute testing.

Fullscreen Mode Enabled by Default in the Editor

In our last post, we provided an overview of the many upcoming changes in WordPress 5.4.

Beginning with WordPress 5.4 RC 4, Gutenberg opens in fullscreen mode by default the first time the editor is opened in a new installation or on a new device.

Individual users can disable this setting by switching modes in the editor menu.

How to disable fullscreen mode in the editor in WordPress 5.4
How to disable fullscreen mode in the editor in WordPress 5.4

This editor preference is stored locally for now, which means it will reset to fullscreen mode any time the editor is used on a new device or in incognito mode or if user preferences are reset.

We understand some users may want to disable this option, preferring to default to the traditional editor view. The following code snippet can be adjusted and added to any site’s theme files to disable the fullscreen mode default. Please note, this only applies to sites using the Gutenberg editor; the classic editor will be unaffected.

function disable_editor_fullscreen_by_default() {
  $script = "jQuery( window ).load(function() { const isFullscreenMode = wp.data.select( 'core/edit-post' ).isFeatureActive( 'fullscreenMode' ); if ( isFullscreenMode ) { wp.data.dispatch( 'core/edit-post' ).toggleFeature( 'fullscreenMode' ); } });";
  wp_add_inline_script( 'wp-blocks', $script );
}
add_action( 'enqueue_block_editor_assets', 'disable_editor_fullscreen_by_default' );

When Will WordPress 5.4 Be Deployed?

VIP Go: WordPress 5.4 will be rolled out to all WordPress.com VIP and VIP Go sites on Tuesday, March 31, 2020.

WordPress.com VIP: As with all Core upgrades, we’ll be pushing incremental updates leading up to the public release.

Please note that the deployment dates are subject to change if critical issues are discovered during testing or the public release is delayed. We’ll post updates to the Lobby if the dates do change.

What Should I Do?

We highly recommend updating your local development environments to the beta release using the Beta Tester plugin or updating it to track 5.4 (i.e. trunk) via either the Subversion or GitHub repos.

For sites on VIP Go, you can have your non-production sites switched to WordPress 5.4 now. If this is something you’re interested in, please open a ticket and we can set it up for you.

And, as always, if you have any questions related to this release, please open a support ticket and we will be happy to assist.